Who Invited the Dead Man? Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Teaser chapter

  Praise for the previous mysteries of Patricia Sprinkle . . .

  “Light touches of humor and the charming interplay between MacLaren and her magistrate husband make this a fun read for mystery fans.”—Library Journal

  “Sparkling . . . witty . . . a real treat and as refreshing as a mint julep, a true Southern pleasure.”—Romantic Times

  “Sparkles with verve, charm, wit, and insight. I loved it.”

  —Carolyn Hart

  “Engaging . . . compelling . . . a delightful thriller.”

  —Peachtree Magazine

  “The sort of light entertainment we could use more of in the hot summer days to come.”—The Denver Post

  “[Sprinkle] just keeps getting better.”

  —The Post & Courier (Charleston, SC)

  SIGNET

  Published by New American Library, a division of

  Penguin Putnam Inc., 375 Hudson Street,

  New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.

  Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand,

  London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Books Australia Ltd, Ringwood,

  Victoria, Australia

  Penguin Books Canada Ltd, 10 Alcorn Avenue,

  Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4V 3B2

  Penguin Books (N.Z.) Ltd, 182-190 Wairau Road,

  Auckland 10, New Zealand

  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices:

  Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England

  First published by Signet, an imprint of New American Library, a division of Penguin Putnam Inc.

  First Printing, July 2002

  Copyright © Patricia Sprinkle, 2002 Excerpt from Who Left That Body In The Rain? copyright © Patricia Sprinkle, 2002

  eISBN : 978-1-101-08831-9

  All rights reserved

  REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  BOOKS ARE AVAILABLE AT QUANTITY DISCOUNTS WHEN USED TO PROMOTE PRODUCTS OR SERVICES. FOR INFORMATION PLEASE WRITE TO PREMIUM MARKETING DIVISION, PENGUIN PUTNAM INC., 375 HUDSON STREET, NEW YORK, NEW YORK 10014.

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  THANKS TO:

  Robert Bremm, of Parrot Jungle, Miami, Florida, for his invaluable information about parrots, particularly scarlet macaws, and for giving me the chance to meet a parrot face-to-face.

  Helen Rhea Stumbo, founder of Camellia and Main gift store and catalogue, who explained the fascinating world of catalogue merchandising.

  Donna Van Lier, who frankly shared her own experience dealing with a husband with Traumatic Brain Injury, and steered me toward two excellent books: Where Is the Mango Princess? by Cathy Crimmins (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2000) and Over My Head: A Doctor’s Own Story of Brain Injury from the Inside Looking Out by Claudia L. Osborn (Kansas City: Andrews McMeel Publishing, 1998).

  Dorothy Cowling, who proofread and suggested good changes in the book. Judge Curt St. Germaine, chief magistrate of Burke County, Georgia, and Judge Mildred Anne Palmer, Mac’s inspiration and consultant on being a Georgia magistrate.

  The expertise in these fields is theirs; any errors in their fields are my own.

  CAST OF CHARACTERS

  MacLaren Yarbrough: amateur sleuth, Georgia magistrate, co-owner of Yarbrough’s Feed, Seed and Nursery

  Joe Riddley Yarbrough: MacLaren’s husband, a former magistrate, co-owner of YFS&N

  Clarinda Williams: cook for MacLaren and Joe Riddley

  Ridd: the Yarbroughs’ older son, a high school math teacher and small farmer

  Martha: Ridd’s wife, an emergency room supervisor Cricket (3) and Bethany (16): their children

  Walker: the Yarbroughs’ younger son, an insurance salesman

  Cindy: his ornamental wife Tad (9) and Jessica (11): their children

  Augusta Wainwright: autocratic leader of Hopemore society

  Meriwether Wainwright: her granddaughter

  Alice Fulton: Augusta’s personal secretary and companion

  Florine Jackson: Augusta’s housekeeper and cook

  Winifred “Pooh” DuBose: Augusta Wainwright’s oldest friend, a widow

  Lottie and Otis Raeburn: Pooh’s cook-housekeeper and driver-yard man, respectively

  Slade Rutherford: new editor of the Hopemore Statesman, a weekly paper

  Kelly Keane: newspaper reporter

  Darren Hernandez: Joe Riddley’s physical therapist

  Hiram Blaine: local character who carries a parrot and believes in aliens

  Hector: Hiram’s brother, convinced the Confederate treasury is buried on his land

  Jed: their nephew, an Atlanta lawyer

  Hubert Spence: MacLaren and Joe Riddley’s nearest neighbor and old friend

  Maynard: Hubert’s son, the Hope County Museum curator

  Selena Jones: Maynard’s girlfriend and a nurse

  Police Chief Charlie Muggins

  Sheriff Bailey “Buster” Gibbons

  It is unfortunate when you are a newly appointed judge, and the chief of police finds a dead man at your party.

  It is downright mortifying when the last words out of your mouth were, “Don’t look behind that screen. You know good and well I put it there to hide things I don’t want seen.”

  File that under Life Moments I Would Rather Forget.

  1

  SEPTEMBER

  Knowing where to begin this story is like finding the end of a ball of yarn after it spends an hour with my beagle Lulu. Maybe the best place to begin is with the first death, which was as unexpected as the second, but not half as mystifying.

  Garlon Wainwright dropped dead on the seventeenth hole at the Hopemore Country Club during the Labor Day Tournament. Poor Garlon was in the lead for the first time in his life, and some said his heart just couldn’t stand the excitement.

  According to his obituary in the Hopemore Statesman, Garlon was “fifty-five, only child of Augusta and the late Lamar Wainwright of Wainwright Mills, survived by his mother, one daughter, Meriwether, and his second wife, Candi (35).” I suspected Gusta had a hand in writing it. Nobody was surprised after the funeral to see Gusta and Meriwether riding to the cemetery in the first Cadillac an
d Candi, alone, in the second.

  I kept meaning to get over to see Gusta after the funeral, but couldn’t find a minute. That was the autumn after my husband, Joe Riddley Yarbrough, got shot in the head. He’d survived, but recovery from a head wound is slow, uphill work. I was busier than a bird dog in hunting season between driving him to various kinds of therapies and running Yarbrough’s Feed, Seed and Nursery without him. As if that weren’t enough, I’d agreed to serve as a Georgia magistrate in his place, and while I was used to watching Joe Riddley fit that in around work at the store, I hadn’t realized quite how much time it took.

  On Wednesday morning a whole week after Garlon’s funeral, I was pushing Joe Riddley’s wheelchair up the back porch ramp after physical therapy when I heard the phone.

  “You gotta answer,” our cook, Clarinda, called through the open screened door. “I’m makin’ rolls and my hands’re covered with grease and flour.” Clarinda came to help me when our older son, Ridd, was born forty years ago, and has worked for—and bossed—me ever since.

  The voice on the other end was chillier than a healthy dog’s nose on a frosty morning. “MacLaren? I need you here right away.” I knew it was Gusta. Anybody else in town would have told me who they were. Even my sons announce “Mama, this is Ridd” or “Hey, it’s Walker.” Gusta belonged to that highly self-confident elite who believe the rest of us have so few friends we will always recognize their voices.

  Augusta Wainwright was the closest thing we had to royalty in Hopemore, Georgia. Her granddaddy was governor back when she was young, and her brother was a U.S. senator for three terms. She never bragged, but their names cropped up in a lot of conversations. She also never bragged that after Lamar’s death she sold his daddy’s cotton mills for more millions than I have fingers and toes, but she expected us to let newcomers know, so she got due respect. Gusta ascended to the throne of Hopemore within a few days of her birth, and never relinquished it.

  “I can’t come right now,” I informed her. “I’ve got to get Joe Riddley settled. Then I have a reporter coming by to interview me for the paper.” I tried to say that casually, but to tell the truth, I was a bit nervous and even a little excited. In the past it was Joe Riddley who got stories in the paper, for winning almost every award in the county. All I’d done was help him run Yarbrough’s Feed, Seed and Nursery, raise two boys, and serve as treasurer to a lot of clubs. Treasurers don’t get stories in the paper, unless they abscond with funds. Of course, I wrote a monthly gardening column, and my name was sometimes in the paper for helping our ungrateful police chief, Charlie Muggins, solve a murder. But those weren’t stories about me.

  Gusta didn’t say a word about my interview. A bit miffed, I warned, “It will be close to dinnertime before I get there.” For Gusta, as for us, dinner was still eaten at noon.

  She sighed. “Well get here as soon as you can. I need you to come talk sense into Meriwether.”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “I don’t want to mention it over the telephone.” We’ve had private phone lines longer than Meriwether has been alive, but Gusta still thinks somebody might be listening in on her.

  When I hung up, Joe Riddley spoke in his new, careful way. “Who was on the phone?”

  Joe Riddley was the best-looking man in Hope County, as far as I was concerned—with long, rangy bones from his Scots grandfather and dark hair and eyes and a tinge of copper in his skin from his Cherokee grandmother—and it broke my heart to see him sitting in a wheelchair with a half-there look in his eyes and his cap dangling from one hand. All his life Joe Riddley had worn a succession of red caps with YARBROUGH’S in white letters over the brim. Our boys joked they’d bury their daddy in his cap and me with my pocketbook.

  I set my pocketbook on the counter. “Gusta, commanding me to come talk sense into Meriwether. Hang up your hat.”

  Joe Riddley carefully centered his cap on its hook beside the kitchen closet. “Meriwether has sense,” he said belligerently. Meriwether was one of Joe Riddley’s favorite people. “Meriwether’s going to be all right. You just wait and see.”

  He’d been saying that for twelve years, since Meriwether came home from college silent and pale as an ice princess and let out word that her engagement to Jed Blaine was over. When folks have watched you fall in love in preschool and stay in love with a hometown boy all the way through college, they feel they have a right to know more than that, but Meriwether never offered any explanations. Just moved back into her grandmother’s house (where she’d lived since her own mother died in childbirth) and volunteered in charities Gusta thought would fold if Wainwrights didn’t personally oversee them, accompanied Gusta on two or three trips abroad every year, wrote Gusta’s letters, paid her bills, balanced her checkbook, and helped her host small elegant parties several times a year. Joe Riddley and I got Christmas cards from Jed, so we knew when he finished Mercer Law School and joined a practice in Atlanta, but he never came back to Hopemore and Meriwether never, ever mentioned his name.

  Clarinda snorted from where she was rolling out the biscuits. “Best sense you can talk to that girl is, tell her to move out of her grandmother’s house and get a life. Prince Charming ain’t gonna ride his white charger up Miss Gusta’s steps, and he may not recognize she’s a princess once she gets wrinkles.”

  “I’ll tell her you said so.”

  Clarinda opened her mouth to say more when we heard tires crunch on our gravel drive and knew the reporter had arrived.

  No taller than my five-foot-three and wearing a khaki skirt, yellow cotton sweater, and sandals, she scarcely looked old enough to be out of college. Silky auburn hair swung down her back halfway to her bottom. Only the wire-rimmed glasses perched on her pert nose and the expression in her brown eyes were businesslike. “I’m Kelly Keane”—she held out one slim hand—“from the Hopemore Statesman. It’s such a pretty day. Could we talk on your porch?”

  Hope County is located in that strip of Middle Georgia between I-20 and I-16, right on the edge of the gnat line, and while nobody knows why gnats come to a certain Georgia latitude and stop, Joe Riddley always said it’s because they know our climate’s the next best thing to heaven. That September day the grass and trees were dark, dark green and an egg yolk sun floated near one startling white cloud in a deep blue sky. As we carried brownies and glasses of tea to our screened side porch, bees buzzed, young birds sassed their parents in the manner of adolescents everywhere, and the air was thick with the scent of our old apple tree.

  “This is lovely!” Ms. Keane exclaimed as she took a rocker and looked over our three acres of grass, trees, and flower beds.

  “Why, thank you. Our son Ridd does most of the work. He loves to dig in the dirt, and we’re too busy selling plants to have time to fool with them.”

  She poised her pen over a pad. “Now, you and Judge Yarbrough—” She turned so fiery red I nearly went for water to put her out.

  “That’s all right. People do that all the time. They still think of him as the real judge.”

  “Are you both lawyers?”

  “Oh, no. In Georgia you don’t have to be a lawyer to be a magistrate. The chief magistrate in each county is elected, and she or he appoints the rest. Most of us are part-timers, running our businesses while we serve. The state gives us training every year.”

  She checked a list of questions she’d brought. “How long have you all been married?”

  “Married, or together?” From her expression, I knew she thought we’d lived in sin before getting hitched, so I hurried to set her straight. “Joe Riddley and I have been married forty-one years, but we’ve known each other nearly sixty. We met when I was four and he was six, when my daddy stopped by his daddy’s hardware store for cotton seed and fertilizer. That’s the same store we now own, Yarbrough’s Feed, Seed and Nursery. But everybody already knows that.”

  “That’s romantic.” She turned a little pink. “I think your husband has physical therapy with a friend of mine. Darren Hern
andez?”

  “That’s right.” While she consulted her notes, I was thinking I’d have to ask Darren if he’d taken Kelly out. His love life could use some sprucing up—he was pining for a two-timing woman down in Dublin. Kelly lifted her head. “You have two sons, right? Ridd teaches at the high school and Walker owns an insurance company?”

  “Yes. They grew up in this house, just like their daddy. He was born upstairs.” When she looked around at the big blue house in astonishment, I surprised her some more. “Joe Riddley is the fourth-generation Yarbrough to live here. His great-granddaddy owned a sawmill and lumber company back before the War. He could afford to build big after General Sherman lit through town and created an unprecedented demand for lumber. The Civil War,” I answered her puzzled look. “Sherman burned the houses.”